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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815589">The Golden Age (Self Translation)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommenix_yu/pseuds/Tommenix_yu'>Tommenix_yu</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>The Golden Age - Fandom, translation - Fandom, 王小波, 黄金时代</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Self-translation, Translation from Chinese, 中文翻译 | Translation in Chinese</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-08-10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-01-05</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-05 12:16:42</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>3,929</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/25815589</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tommenix_yu/pseuds/Tommenix_yu</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>It all starts with a conversation about being a loose shoe——a woman with an affair. Later on, it's about life, existence, sex, and finally about love.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Chapter 1</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This is the work of Chinese writer Wang Xiaobo. I consider him one of the best writers of this language, and a great influencer of the people. Yet few translations were available and less satisfying ones. This is my own way of tributing this great writer, as well as his great work.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>When I was twenty-one, I was “down to the countryside”*[1] in Yun Nan. Chen Qingyang was twenty-six at the time, and was working as a doctor at the place I went down. I was in team fourteen, downhill, while she was in team fifteen, uphill. One day, she ran down the hill and asked me whether she was a loose shoe. I didn’t know her so well back then. The thing she asked me is as follows: even though everyone called her a loose shoe, but she thought she was not. Because a loose shoe is a woman with an affair, but she was not seeing anyone. Even though her husband was in jail for a year, she was not seeing any other guy, neither had she before. Therefore, she simply didn’t understand why people call her a loose shoe. It was not hard for me to comfort her: I can prove that she is not a loose shoe by logic. If Chen Qingyang is a loose shoe, it means that she’s seeing some guy, then there must at least exist some guy that she was seeing. Since we cannot find that guy, it is not the case that Chen Qingyang is seeing some guy. But I willfully said that she is a loose shoe and it is not to be reputed.</p>
<p>	The reason Chen Qingyang consulted me whether she was a loose shoe is that she had given me an injection. The whole thing went as follows: in farm working hours, my team-leader assigned me to transplant instead of plowing. Therefore I could not stand up straight while working. Those who knew me knew that I was six feet tall and my waist was long-injured. Thus, after a month of transplanting, I couldn’t sleep without a nerve block shot due to the ache. All the syringe needles(their plates fell off) in our team’s infirmary were barbed and had done critical damage to my waist, leaving it for a long time as if shot by a shotgun. Under these situations, I can’t help but think of team fifteen’s doctor Chen Qingyang, who graduated from Peking University, who still knows a syringe needle from crochet. Thus, I found her to see my waist. Thirty minutes after I came back, she came to my room to consult me whether she was a loose shoe.</p>
<p>	Chen Qingyang said that she did not despise loose shoes at all. From her observation, all loose shoes are kind, willing to help, and seldom disappoint others, which is why she actually admired loose shoes. But the issue is not about whether loose shoes were bad, it was that she was not a loose shoe, just like a cat is not a dog. If a cat was called a dog, it would, too, feel uncomfortable. Now that everyone was calling her a loose shoe, even herself forgot who she was.</p>
<p>	Chen Qingyang wore only her white uniform on in my thatched cottage, baring her legs and arms the same manner she did in her cottage. What’s different, though, is that she bonded her hair with her handkerchief, and had her slippers on. Upon seeing her, I began wondering: what was she wearing beneath that white uniform, or was there anything at all? This could be used to make the point that Chen Qingyang was pretty, as she thought that her cloth didn’t matter——the confidence of prettiness, developed long from childhood. I told her that she was a loose shoe, and even gave some evidence: a loose shoe is, after all, a reference. “If everyone refers it to you, then you indeed are one. Nothing is to be said about it. If everyone said that you had an affair with some guy, then you indeed had an affair. Nothing is to be said about it neither. As for why people call you such, my guesses are as follows: everyone agrees that a married woman’s face, had she, not an affair, should be swarthy and her breast saggy. But your face is not swarthy—it’s bright; and your breasts not saggy—but firm. Therefore, you are a loose shoe. Perchance you don’t wanna be a loose shoe, you should darken your face, and sag your breast; this way no one will call you a loose shoe anymore. Of course, it’s quite unfair to you. But if you don’t want to be treated unfairly, you should get some men, thereby even you would consider yourself a loose shoe. Others are not obliged to investigate before calling you a loose shoe, but you are obliged to make them incapable of calling you thus.” Chen Qingyang, hearing this, blushed and glared at me, almost slapped me in the face. She was famous in slapping others in the face—many had tasted them. But then she put down her hand, almost disheartened, and said: “Fine. Be it then. But sagginess or swarthiness isn’t your business.” She also said that if I ponder on it too much, I was very likely to get a slap in the face. </p>
<p>	Going back to twenty years ago,  I thought of how Chen Qingyang talked to me about the loose shoe problem. Back then I had a sallow face and cracking lips with stains of cigarette. My hair shaggy like palm leaves, my uniform ripped and glued with plaster, leg crossed, I sat on a plank—a total punk I looked like. You, readers, can imagine how Chen Qingyang wanted to slap me after hearing her breast judged by such a guy as me. She was a little sensitive back then, as many strong men turned to her for illness when they weren’t ill at all. They went not to see a doctor, but to see a loose shoe. I was the only outlier. My waist looked as if raked. Whether or not they bother me, the holes themselves were enough reason to see a doctor. These holes gave her hope that she might be able to show me that she was not a loose shoe. Someone, even someone like me, comparing to no one, agreeing that she was not a loose shoe was a completely different matter. But I only let her down. </p>
<p>	This is what I thought: if I can prove that she was not a loose shoe simply on the basis that I wanted to, things would just be too easy. In fact, I can prove nothing, except those that don’t need proof. In one spring, my team leader said that I shot his bitch’s left eye, leaving its head tilted, as if in a ballet. From then on he made things hard for me. I was left with only three means to prove my innocence:</p>
<p>1. There was no bitch in his place;<br/>2. The bitch was born without a left eye; <br/>3. I was born without a hand, thus incapable of shooting the bitch. </p>
<p>	It turns out that none of these conditions were reached. There indeed was a brown bitch in his place; her left eye indeed was shot after birth; and not only was I capable of shooting, but also was I an excellent shooter. Not long before that, I borrowed Luo the Fourth’s air gun and shot dead a kilogram’s rat with a bowlful of mung beans. Of course, there were better shooters than me in the team, Luo the Fourth is one of them. The air gun was his. In addition, I was there when he shot blind the little bitch. But I can’t tell upon others, and besides, I was good friend with Luo. Moreover, if our team-leader dare to accuse of Luo, he would not be accusing me at the start. So I remained silent, and silence is acquiescence. So I went transplanting in the spring, bending down like half of a utility pole, and went herding cows in the fall, missing all mealtime. Surely, I’m not willing to do anything about it. One day on the hill, I borrowed Luo the Fourth’s air gun again and shot the bitch’s right eye. Since the bitch was now without her left eye as well as her right eye, she cannot run back to our team-leader——God knows where it ran.</p>
<p>	I remember nothing from those days except herding cows uphills and lying in my bed. Nothing was to be done then. Nothing, I thought, was related. Yet Chen Qingyang ran downhill for me again. It turned out that the new rumor has it that she had an affair with me. She asked me to give proof of our innocence. I said that it was only sufficient to prove that when two other points were proved:</p>
<p>1. Chen Qingyang is a virgin;<br/>2. I was born an ineffectual person incapable of intercourse. </p>
<p>        None of these are provable. Therefore, we cannot prove ourselves innocent. I was rather willing to prove us not, though. Hearing these words, Chen Qingyang’s face first went pallid, then red, and finally, she left without a word. <br/>        Chen Qingyang told me that I was a punk throughout. The first time she asked me to prove her innocence, I rolled my eyes and began talking nonsense; the second time I formally proposed intercourse. That was when she decided that she would slap me in my face someday. Had I knew her plan then, none of what was about to happen would happen, probably. </p>
<p>[1]: Down to the countryside: The Up to the Mountains and Down to the Countryside Movement, often known simply as the Down to the Countryside Movement, was a policy instituted in the People's Republic of China in the late 1960s and early 1970s. As a result of what he perceived to be pro-bourgeois thinking prevalent during the Cultural Revolution, Chairman Mao Zedong declared certain privileged urban youth would be sent to mountainous areas or farming villages to learn from the workers and farmers there. In total, approximately 17 million youth were sent to rural areas as a result of the movement. Link: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Down_to_the_Countryside_Movement</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Chapter 2</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>It was my 21st birthday and Chen Qingyang went to see me that night...</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>On the day of my twenty-first birthday, I was herding bulls at the river. I felt asleep on the meadow that afternoon, and before that I covered myself with few banana tree leaves; waking up, I found my coverings gone(the bulls probably ate the leaves). Subtropical dry-season sunlight baked me all-around red and itchy. My little monk pointed straight up at the sky, with an unprecedented size. This is the scene of my birthday.</p><p>	The sun was dazzling when I woke up, the sky frighteningly blue. A layer of thin dust shrouded me like talcum powder. None of the other infinite erections in my life was as vigorously powerful as that one, probably because I was at a desolate place where no one ever was.</p><p>	I climbed up to check my bulls and saw that they are all grazing quietly in the faraway river. At that moment everything was quiet, muted, and white winds howled across the field. Some bulls from different villages were fighting, eyes popping red, saliva running down. This type of bulls’ scrotums was tight, their members hard. Our bulls didn’t do things like this. However other bulls provoke them, they lay still at their post: to protect our herding process from their fighting, we castrated them.</p><p>	I was there every castration. For most bulls, you simply cut them off. But for those ferocious ones, you’d have to do the “hammer way”—that is, cutting open their scrotums, taking out those testicles, and crushing it with a hammer. The “enchanted” bulls would know only to eat and work afterward, and you wouldn’t even need to bundle them before killing them. The hammer-man believed that the same process had the same effect on human beings. Every time after the castration he shouted at us: “You bull eggs just need a hammer!” In his logic, this bloody-red, hard-as-hell, foot-long stub on me is the very incarnation of sin.</p><p>	Of course, I had different views about it. To me, this thing is incomparably important, as was my existence itself. The sky grew darker, and some clouds roamed idly above. Their lower part sank in darkness, while the upper part still bathed sunlight. That day I was twenty-one, in the golden age of my life. I had many wild wishes. I wanted to love, to eat, and to become the half-lit clouds in the sky with a blink of an eye. It was long afterward when I knew that life is a slow process of being hammered.  We grow older each day, and our wishes fade. In the end, we become the hammered bulls. Yet I did not foresee that at my twenty-first birthday. I thought I would be ferocious forever, that nothing could hammer me. That night I invited Chen Qingyang to have fish with me, so I should get the fish in the afternoon. It was not until 5 p.m. that I remembered to check the fish-bucket place. Before I even got into the river fork, two Jingpo* kids ran out of it, fighting and splashing the muds. I myself got a few mud paints on my body. They stopped when I grabbed their ears, asking:</p><p>	“Dick-head, where’s the fish?”</p><p>	The older kid shouts: “It’s all shitty Lennon’s fault! He sat on the dam and the dam fucking fall over!”</p><p>	Lennon shouted back: “Wang Er! Your dam is fucking trash!” I said: “Fuck off! I cleared all grass-roots before I build it, and you said it’s fucking trash?” When we went inside, I saw that either because of Lennon’s butt or my trashy building skill the dam was down, and all the bucketed water long gong, fish long gong, a whole day’s work long gone. I cannot admit that it’s my fault for sure, so I scolded Lennon real bad, and Leddu(the other kid) echoed my words until Lennon was so raged and jumped up and said:</p><p>	“Wang Er! Leddu! Dick-heads! You husband and brother line up against me! I’m going back and my father will shot your asses!” </p><p>	Finishing this, the little bastard tried to get on the bank, but I caught his ankle and dragged him down again. </p><p>	“You go and we herd your bulls for you? Stop dreaming!”</p><p>	I pressed him on the ground when he cursed again. He now cursed with a mixed-up Chinese-Jingpo-Dai language, drools dripping out. I replied with a pure Peking accent. Suddenly he stopped cursing and looked down at my buddy, and an undisguised admiration showed upon his face. I looked down and find out that my little monk was hard erect again. Lennon praised bawdily:</p><p>	“Oooops! Wanna fuck Leddu’s sister!”</p><p>	I threw him away and put on my pants immediately.</p><p>	Later that night I would lit the gas lamp in the pumping room, and Chen Qingyang would suddenly arrive, talking about how she thought that living was not fun, that she was innocent in everything. I said that daring to consider herself innocent is the biggest crime of all. According to myself back then, everyone was born lazy and horny, if you are thrifty, diligent, and pure, then you have committed the crime of affectation, which is even worse than sloth or lust. She seemed to like these words but never chimed in.</p><p>	That night I lit the gas lamp in the pumping room, yet Chen Qingyang didn’t arrive. It was nine o’clock when she came to my door and shouted: “Wang Er! Bastard! Get out!” I went out and saw that she was neatly dressed up in white head to toe, but her face wasn’t so relaxed. She said: “You’ve invited me to have fish and have a true talk. Now where’s the fish?” I had to say that it was still in the river. She said fine, then there’s only one true talk left, and we’ll talk here. I said that we can talk inside. She agreed and sit in my room, looking rather inflamed.</p><p>	On the night of my twenty-first birthday, I intended to lure Chen Qingyang to my bed because she was my friend and had buxom breasts, a thin waist, and round butts. In addition, her neck was upright and slim, her face pretty charming. I wanted to have sex with her and thought that she should not disagree. If she wanted to use my body to practice evisceration, I would be quite willing; therefore, it was not too big a deal that I borrow her body for a while. The only problem is that she was a woman, and women are sometimes narrow-minded. I shall have to inspire her on this, so I began to explain what is “chivalry.”</p><p>	In my understanding, chivalry is the great friendship of fellows out there in the world. The great heroes in The Water Margin kill without blinking, yet when they heard the name of Song Jiang they would bend down willingly. I was like them bandit heroes, believing nothing but chivalry.  As long as you are my friend, however evil or hated you are, I would stand by you. That night I offered my great friendship to Chen Qingyang, who was deeply moved and right then said that she accept this friendship. Not only so, but she also said that she would repay me with her greater friendship, and would not forsake it even if I am despicable or treacherous. Hearing her words, I felt immensely relieved and said the following: I am twenty-one already and haven’t had the thing between men and women, and that’s not good. She went totally absent-minded after that, probably she wasn’t prepared for that. She didn’t move a bit whatever I said to her, so I  put my hand on her shoulder and felt that her muscle was taut. This girl might at any time then give me a slap. If that really happened, it would prove that she does not know what is friendship at all. Only she didn’t. Abruptly she snorted and started to laugh, saying: I’m so stupid! Tricked by you that easily!</p><p>	I said: What trick, what do you mean? She said: Nothing, I didn’t say anything. I asked her whether she agrees or not what I just said. She spitted and flushed. Seeing her so shy, I took the initiative and start to move my hands around. She pushed me a few times and said: not here, let’s go up the hill. So I followed.</p><p>	Much later, Chen Qingyang had said that she never figured out whether my great friendship is real or just something I made up. She also said that those words obsessed her like enchantment, and she won’t regret losing everything for it. In fact, that great friendship was neither real nor made up—like everything in the world. It is real if you believe so, made up if you believe otherwise. My words, too, are neither real nor made up. Yet I was ready to honor my promise at any time, and won’t shrink a bit even if the sky falls for it. Just because of this attitude of mine, nobody trusted me. Even though I take making friends as a life-long career, I’ve only made a handful of them, including Chen Qingyang. That night when we walked up the hill, she said that she needs a trip back home and asked me to wait for her in the back hill. I suspected that she would not come back, but I kept it down and went straight to smoke at the back hill. After a while, she did come. </p><p>	Chen Qingyang said that the first time I went to get an injection, she was dozing on her table. In Yun Nan every people had so much time to doze, so we were always half-asleep. When I got in her room, the room darkened a bit: it was a thatched adobe house and the only light came in from the door. She woke up at that particular moment and asked me what I want. I said that my waist hurts. She let me lie down and I did, almost breaking her bamboo bed. My waist was in so much pain that it couldn’t even bend. I wouldn’t have gone to her if it was less bad. </p><p>	Chen Qingyang said that I had wrinkles around my mouth when I was still very young, and really dark circles. I was pretty tall and my clothes are pretty shaggy, and I didn’t talk much. I went out right after she’d given me the injection. Maybe I said thank, maybe I didn’t. It was half-minute later that she realized that she could let me prove that she was not a loose shoe. So she ran out and saw that I was walking back to group fourteen from a short-cut. I was striding down the hill, jumping over all the gutters and trenches, as if flying. It was a morning of the dry season and the wind blew uphills, deafening me to her shouts. Besides, I never look back when walking. This was how I went away. </p><p>	She said that she wanted to catch me up, but realized that it would be difficult. Besides, I might not be able to prove what she wanted. So she walked back to her infirmary. The reason she later changed her mind and find me downhill is that everyone said she was a loose shoe, therefore everyone was an enemy. Yet I might not be one. She wouldn’t miss the chance and made me an enemy too. </p><p>	That night I smoked at the back hill. Even at night, I could still see things far away in the moonlight and such clean air. I could even hear dogs barking far away. I saw her immediately as Chen Qingyang went out of team fifteen—I might not see her if it was daytime. Still, it was different from daytime; maybe because no one was anywhere. I could not tell whether there were people out there on the hill since silver-grey was everywhere. You could walk with a torch, and that would be saying you want the world to know where you are. If you didn’t, though, then you are as if invisible. Those who know you are there could see you, while those who didn’t know couldn’t. I saw Chen Qingyang walking closer, my heart palpitating, and came to realize spontaneously that we should make out a bit before doing that thing. </p><p>	Chen Qingyang’s reaction to this was glacial. Her lips were cold and responded not a bit to my fondling. When I was finally unbuttoning her shirt, she pushed me away and took her clothes off, folded them aside, and lie down stiffly on the lawn, all by herself. </p><p>	Chen Qingyang’s naked body was extremely beautiful. I hurried my clothes off and crawled to her, who pushed me away time after time until she gave me something and said: “Know how to use it? Need a little teaching?”</p><p>	It was a condom. I was at high spirits and felt only slightly indisposed by her words. I crawled on her again after putting it on, fumbled for a while without getting it correct. Suddenly she said coldly:</p><p>	“Hey! Do you know what are you doing?”</p><p>	I said of course I do, and can your grace please move closer a little bit, cuz I’m gonna examine your body structure with this light. Then there was a thunder at my face: she gave me a huge slap. I jumped up, took my own clothes, and started away.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>* A minority ethnic group in China. Dai(mentioned later) is another.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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